Hosting for an ecommerce site

peanutpie05

Hi guys, was hoping someone might be able to help me out here. I have searched but the forum but the threads I found don't really answer my question.

I am having a full ecommerce site built (at a cost of £2250+vat:eek: ). When I posted about it before ... people seemed to think that the price for the build was basically ok. However ... they (the people building my site) want to charge me £50 per month for shared hosting. This is, I'm sure, way too high.

I don't have a clue about traffic and bandwidth ... but I'd like to get a hosting package from a reliable company.

Then I looked at 123.reg (who I bought my domain from) and their top of the range hosting was starting from £40 (though this was for a dedicated server)

I'm very confused now

Can anyone recommend a way to go (either shared or dedicated) and what is a reasonable price? I know I need it to be php / mysql compatible.

Any help gratefully received:)

PaulK_3

Shared would probably be good enough to start with and will be cheaper, once you have become established and your traffic picks up you can then look to move to a dedicated server which would offer you better performance etc. How much are you looking to spend per month? £50 for non-dedicated hosting is a bit ripe.

peanutpie05

Thanks Paul .. that is a good point - I don't suppose I'd need anything to fancy to start (though I'm guessing I'd have to take out a 12 month contract for hosting?).

If I need to spend £50 per month .. I don't mind so long as I'm getting good value for money. The cheaper the better I suppose but without compromising on reliability etc.

I just felt that the £50 shared hosting was a rip off and that is why I objected to using it (though i feel a little nervous taking my hosting elsewhere as I am not technically minded and not sure if my website designer will help me in certain areas if I have not taken his hosting IYSWIM).

Hope that makes sense:o

PaulK_3

The site is yours as soon as you pay for it, all you need is the site files saved to CD or something. Then when you get your hosting sorted your upload all the files to the appropriate folders and then point your domain to the IP address of your hosting space. Sounds complicated but it isn't
Like I said though £50 is a bit much, did the website designers say what you got for all the money as it is well out of the realm of reallity if it's for shared hosting.

peanutpie05

The proposal I was sent said quite simply:

'Shared hosting: website, database including multiple email addresses'

I'm also now concerned whether my not taking up the hosting fom the designer is going to affect how we manage the site. The designer said we would be able to use a content manager which is web based - to enable us to update and control our site without the need for html experience etc.

I'm so confused ... this is a reallt difficult situation ... we wanted to build an ecommerce business but have no techical knowledge. We do not have friends with technical knowledge that we can ask and so we are having to take our desngers word of everything and trust that what he is doing is okay.

I'd be mortified if this went wrong ... all our savings have gone into it and we simply cannot afford for it not to work.

If anyone would like to look at the proposal from my designer and help translate it for me ... I'd be eternally grateful.

PaulK_3

The fact that you have no experience is what the developers are banking on..... quite literally. Do you have a link to the people that are building your site so that we can take a peak? Any updates to your site will require some HTML knowledge unless they are building you a very basic site and have some form of wonder tool. Very few sites out there can be maintained by a "content manager" 100% especially if the users have no HTML experience.
Some questions to ask:
What support will you get for your money, do they provide 24/7 cover or only office hour support?
What bandwidth allowance per month
What hard disk space are you allowed
How reliable are their servers (what uptime % can they state and prove to you?)
What testimonials can they provide from other customers
What services are they providing within the site
Are they coding your a secure site
How are they looking to provide you with the ability to take payments
What email capacity will they provide you
Do they have a "live" support system or do you have to waste time and money calling them to fix things?
Do they have a stated response time for issues?

peanutpie05

I've pm'd you Paul

thx:)

peanutpie05

Oh no ... now I am panicking:eek:

I took advice regarding registering my domains (did this a month or so ago) and opted for 123reg.co.uk

Well I've just been looking at a review centre and the reports on 123reg are AWFUL.

I'm worried now that if I try and set up hosting with another company - I might have problems with tying the two up (I'm not actually sure how the domain company and hosting company 'speak' to each other).

Any ideas?

PaulK_3

OK, first question, would you trust a company to design your site if they don't even proof-read their main document that they send you to get you to buy their product?

If you do not have to keep paying our web agency to make changes to your website, than you need a content management system. A website developed with our content manage means you can edit the content on your site without any technical knowledge -change things when you when and create as many pages has you need.

2nd question, they assume you will host with them but they do not state that you have to, make sure that the content manager is still usable if you host elsewhere, it should be fine and all you would need to do is point it at the IP address that your host will provide you with when you register with them.
Thirdly, the price quoted for the package is for the site only, you get no training on the package without paying £250 plus VAT plus expenses per day.
Also they do not even mention bandwidth allowance or disk space, without that how do you know what to expect from them?
They are also quoting an Ongoing Cost for support of £100 per month plus VAT. This you need to clarify as that to me means that if you want them to support your site you need to be paying them £100 per month plus VAT no matter wether you use them or not.
Finally all prices exclude VAT so the prices quoted are going to be a lot less than you actually pay. Plus they want 90% of the cost before your site is completed and live online.
My opinion is too much money for what they are doing and no doubt you could get better deals elsewhere, I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole and would shop around a bit first since they obviously know that they can milk their customers even more by offering support at a price. If their tools were any good why would you need support at a cost and why would they have to charge you £250+VAT+Expenses for training?

peanutpie05

I think I might cry!!!!

We have already started the ball rolling with these people and paid the 1st installment.

I agree the attention to detail in the proposal leaves alot to be desired. Problem is - as I mentioned before - I have not got any expertise in this are and do not know anyone who does, so we had to make a decision based on our own hunches and forum opinions (bad I know ... but I didn't see any other way).

You raise some very good questions ... and I will definately be forwarding those to the website designer.

Will report back!

PaulK_3

You most certainly have to ask the questions but you have signed the agreement already if you have paid money to them already. All I can say is unless you think you are going to make a lot of money from the site £50+VAT per month is a lot for hosting on a shared box, especially if any support you request has to be paid for and they haven't set out any bandwidth or disk space allowances.